


Debt

by sparxwrites



Series: peace beneath the city [4]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Angst, Danger, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Life Debt, M/M, Multi, Seizures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 09:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2727803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s another cheer from downstairs, louder this time, Lomadia’s voice yelling, “Get in there!” audible over Honeydew’s roar and Xephos’ whoop. Someone’s scored, again, and Will only gets that half-second’s warning before the inevitable tweets and texts and instant messages crash over him like a tidal wave.</p><p>(In which there is a big game on in town, Will accidentally drowns himself in the city, and Kirin is there to catch him. Xephos is not pleased about any of this in the slightest.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Debt

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to sassytail for cheering me on with pompoms and stuff for this otherwise i would probably never have finished it tbh whoops... **warnings** for descriptions of things similar to seizures and panic attacks, and emotional/psychological manipulation, although there shouldn't be anything massively upsetting.

Will shudders, rocking forward on his bed as a loud round of cheers echo from downstairs, both from the television that’s turned on close to full volume and from the three adults clustered around it and watching the game with baited breath. If he were more himself, right now – more _Will_ and less _everyone_ , spread less thinly across a city full of excitement and anticipation – he might be able to reach out and turn it down a little.

As it is, the best he can do is clutch his knees tighter and focus on his breathing, inhaling through his nose and exhaling through his mouth like he was taught when he was barely old enough to talk but already causing chaos with his magic. The pattern is as ingrained into him as walking is by now, and he takes comfort in the calming, grounding regularity of it even as he tries to control the noise inside his skull.

He’d been braced for this evening being bad, forewarned by the slowly building headache throughout the day as people prepared for parties and flocked to the stadium and turned their televisions on, but this – this is something else.

Now, it’s gone so far beyond a headache, even beyond a migraine, he isn’t even sure what to call it. He’s never had anyone try to cleave his head open with a blunt axe before, but he suspects this is what it feels like – slow, protracted agony. It's like someone is trying to siphon the internet into his brain, hook him up to cameras and microphones through his veins, plug him into the mains electricity with wires in every muscle.

He’s riding the edge of the most intense magical high he’s ever felt, but somehow the comedown at the same time, shaky and unfocused and out of control, and it’s one of the most disgusting things he’s ever felt.

He doesn’t like being out of control.

There’s another cheer from downstairs, louder this time, Lomadia’s voice yelling, “Get in there!” audible over Honeydew’s roar and Xephos’ whoop. Someone’s scored, again, and Will only gets that half-second’s warning before the inevitable tweets and texts and instant messages crash over him like a tidal wave.

Everything goes black behind his eyes for a long second, and he’s not sure whether he passes out or whether he just loses himself so completely in the streams of data using him as a conduit that he stops being able to see. Above him, he feels the lights flicker in response to the overload that he’s broadcasting out, radio flicking on and off and jumping between static-laden channels. He feels like he’s being electrocuted, wrung out, taken apart byte by byte and put back together again sideways with electricity instead of blood.

When he comes to, he’s sprawled face-down on his bed, gasping against the sheets, cheeks wet with tears he doesn’t remember shedding. His entire body’s trembling from head to foot, jittery convulsions that he can’t seem to stop no matter how hard he bites the inside of his cheek or curls his fingers into the blankets.

It’s only when he tastes blood that he forces his jaw to unclench, pressing his forehead into the mattress and sucking in slow breaths as best as he can. He’s got to be quiet about this – his door’s shut, but sound carries well in an old house like this, and he doesn’t want Xephos worrying about something as ridiculous and humiliating as him not being able to control himself.

Another half-cheer from downstairs, followed by a groan of disappointment. Another roiling wave of too-much-too-heavy-too-big that slams him with the force of a growing hurricane.

He’s thrown against the mattress again with a muffled groan, vision flickering and body twitching convulsively until it passes. His calves are beginning to cramp from the prolonged muscle contractions, shoulders aching and spine a solid line of pain down his back from where he’s arched it beyond its natural limits with the force of his seizures.

“Stop,” he mutters, pushing his face further into the sheets as if he can suffocate the pain out of himself, bringing one shaky hand up to rub at his temple. “ _Stop_.” He doesn’t understand this new sensitivity, this new _vulnerability_ – Xephos had warned him about adapting to city life, that it might take a while, but this… surely this can’t be normal. Surely this can’t be _natural._

The thought that maybe it is natural, is completely normal, and he’s just so much weaker-willed than most people, drifts through his thoughts. He pushes it away with as much savage energy as he can muster.

He tries to force himself to relax, push some of the tension out of his body while there’s a lull in the game, the endless messages slowing down enough for him to push them away from the forefront of his mind and ease the ache in his skull a little. He’s not sure if it’s half time, or just a particularly slow section, but he’s grateful for the chance it gives him to catch his breath anyway.

It’s a struggle to reassert his breathing pattern, constantly distracted by the flickers of half-messages across the inside of his eyeballs – _did u c the_ and _fukin ref doesnt_ and _kickin there ass so_ – but he manages it after a minute or so. It still doesn’t help ease the dragging ache filling his entire body, but it helps him concentrate past it a little, and focusing on counting his breaths blocks out the worst of the information flooding his mind and threatening to overwhelm him.

Inhale-exhale, inhale-exhale. Inhale-exhale, inhale-exhale.

Slowly, so very slowly, the pattern starts slipping from the one drummed into him as a child to the one Kirin had taught him, weeks ago

He doesn’t deliberately start reaching out with his magic. It just sort of happens, curious tendrils pushing out beyond the borders of his body almost automatically now he’s calmed himself down somewhat. He feels open, as opposed to the horrible stretched-thin-ness of a few minutes ago, relaxed and giving rather than being tugged and pulled at. The pain’s still there but it’s distant, detached, belonging to a body that he’s slowly seeping out of.

It reminds him of how he’d felt with Kirin in his shop, honey and lemon and heavy not-quite-earth magic pressed against his back and trickling down his spine. The slow rhythm of his breathing, the way he’d let himself spread out and sink down into the city, releasing all the tension he’d been carrying with him and just letting himself go...

This time, he doesn’t realise he’s free-falling until he fails to hit the ground.

Will doesn’t even have time to scream before the city hooks its claws into him and drags him down and _god_ , he’d forgotten about the claws. He tries to yell, to call out for someone to catch him before it’s too late, but he doesn’t have the breath – can’t even remember how his lungs work, or where they are.

The city roars around him, a whirlwind of size-taste-colour-smell-noise through his mind that he can’t possibly hope to control. It scratches at him, digs into him and tears off chunks of who he is and what he is and why he’s here before he can so much as blink, devours them whole. Before he can breathe, or speak, or pull away, he’s dragged down into the sea of it, into the swirling mess of _life_ that is the city.

 _flash of_ bakery _, flash of_ newsagents, _fresh bread and cigarettes_ \- _fox in the dustbins with a limp and a nose full of rubbish_ \- _pigeons above the city watching a banker drop crumbs from their sandwich and feeling hungry- the radio stations thick in the air and he rides one and mixes the songs and across the city static screeches-_

 _so many buildings, so much magic and energy and power and he touches each one and glories in it that all of this is his and is_ afraid _that all of this is his- wonders where his building is, where his body is, remembers suddenly that this is not him and this_ should not _be him and the panic rises like barbed wire-_

 _one of the buildings full of plants and deep humming magic down in the foundations honey-lemon-earth and a familiar patchwork blanket, and he reaches for it, screams_ KIRINDA-

 _and then it’s gone again and he’s sobbing and screaming as he gets dragged down into the wires by the waves in the air and_ come be we and be free _and he says_ NO _, screams and shouts and cries it as he struggles, but we know he wants to he’s an angel in the wire and a shadow on the wall and he’s ours, we’re his,_ come be we and be free _and he is we-_

 _in the cables below the ground and the nexus under the city burns like ice-cold fire and a flash of eyes and too many teeth and fox tails as something makes a grab for us like a spider on a web- with a hungry smile- in the sewers it’s dark and no electricity so we latch- no,_ he _latches- we latch onto the fibre-optic and ride away from the well-_

 _the thing chases, skims along the nexus like it belongs there, like it doesn’t bite and sting when we touch it, glides across the fetid water of the sewers where we can’t go and we chase along the cables and try to find a way up, up, to the telephone wires and the mains electricity where we can_ burn, _but-_

_but the nexus blocks us at every turn and keeps us down in the dark earth and we scream- because the teeth-hungry-fox-not-fox is gaining and so close and we feel it with its dark, ice-wet magic as it reaches for us and-_

NO, _says something,_ feels _something, and we flinch from it and the sonic boom of its voice-feeling, cower from something heavy and angry and not ours- but it chases the wet-cold-smile-not-fox away- and we clamour electric thanks against its lightning warmth and sing sister-brother-sibling_ come be we and be-

 _and it says_ THIS IS MINE _and it_ tears _at us and it cannot have him it cannot have him he is_ ours _you cannot have him! but it pulls and pulls and the lightning is stronger and-_

Will snaps back into awareness to the sound of swearing in thick Dwarvish, and a loud, “For the last time, get out of the house!” in a familiar, female voice that he can't quite place right now. There's pain at his temples, electricity still draining from his blood, the city's lingering claws sunk into his skin – and he jacknifes up with a strangled yell into the lemon-and-honey warmth in front of him that shouldn’t be as familiar as it is.

“Easy now. There we go,” murmurs Kirin's voice from somewhere above him, and Will presses his face further into Kirin's shoulder, clutches harder at the cashmere-soft jumper beneath his hands. “I've got you. There we go.” A hand brushes through his hair, fingers lingering at his temples, and Will swallows a sob of terrified relief as the last of the city pulls away from him with a final, sucking wrench of agony.

“I- I- _Come be we and_ \- I-” he manages, gasps into Kirin’s shoulder and can’t quite find the words to explain how lost he was, how stupid he feels, how hollow the empty space where the city should sit in his chest is. “What _was_ that?”

He’s terrified by how much part of him wants to go and get lost again, forget everything he is so soon after getting it back, by how loudly he can still feel the call of the angels in his blood and how strongly he can still feel the sick terror of the _thing_ beneath the city chasing him in the pit of his stomach.

Kirin seems to understand, though. “Shh, shh,” he soothes, pets Will’s hair again in slow, gentle motions and smiles. “It’s okay. You’re back now.” He feeds a little warm numbness into the touches, eases some of the lingering ache that must have settled into Will’s bones and dampens his connection to the city.

When Will slumps against him a little more heavily with a sigh of relief, Kirin smiles a small, victorious smile, and murmurs in a voice too low for even Will to hear, “You’re _mine_. I was hardly going to let them take you.”

“Let my nephew go, and get out of my house.” That's Xephos' voice, calm and cold and so very angry, and WIll barely registers it from where he’s still pressed close to Kirin and fighting to remember how to breathe, how to just be _he_ instead of we. It’s surprisingly hard.

Kirin chuckles.

With an effort that almost drains him completely, Will manages to pull away from Kirin enough to peer over his own shoulder. Xephos is stood in the doorway with a sword Will's heard stories about, but never seen. It glitters like diamond, ripples with an eerie purple-blue light, and Xephos' knuckles are white and scarred where they're wrapped around the hilt.

Honeydew's on one side, a large frying pan raised to head height as a formidable weapon. On the other, Lomadia, a cat’s-cradle of charmed wool wrapped around her fingers and sucking in the light to make a swirling nexus in its heart.

Lit from below by the sword's light, anger tight in the corners of his eyes, Xephos looks more dangerous than Will's ever seen him.

But Kirin simply laughs, fails to remove his arms from around Will or move off the bed – or, in fact, do anything at all. “Good evening, Xephos,” he says, voice mild and polite to hide the poorly suppressed amusement in it. “How are you today?”

“Get out,” repeats Xephos again, just as much conviction and authority in his voice as before, fingers flexing around the hilt of his blade. The blue-purple ripple of enchantment that flames along its length is reflected in his eyes. Or maybe _is_ in his eyes. Will can't tell. “How did you get in here in the first place? We’ve got one of the strongest thresholds in the city.”

Kirin laughs again – but this time it’s balanced on a knife’s edge between amusement and irritation at the mortal’s rudeness. “Which do you want me to do?” he asks, voice dangerous, one hand still in Will’s hair and the other spread broad between his shoulders. “Answer your question, or leave your property?”

“Answer the question, and then get the hell out,” snaps Lomadia, pulling the wool of her cat’s-cradle charm a little tighter around her fingers and grinning nastily when the darkness flares in response. “We don’t want any of your fancy faerie word games here.”

Huffing out a noise of amusement at such a disrespectful address, Kirin inclines his head. “Will summoned me by name. More than enough to count as an invitation, don’t you think?”

He smiles ever so slightly at the ripples of confused betrayal that echo through the room in the wake of his words, reflected on everyone’s faces. His hand in Will’s hair tightens just a fraction, a casually possessive gesture that doesn’t go unnoticed by Xephos and only darkens the anger in his eyes.

Abruptly aware that curled against Kirin’s chest is possibly not the best place for him right now, Will tries to pull away. But Kirin’s hands, for all their gentleness, are like steel bands around him, holding him close, and Will is forced to stillness again. His skin prickles hot all over with the embarrassment of his own weakness.

Secretly, though, he’s a little relieved – Kirin is warm, his magic sweet and soothing as it eases the ache in his muscles and blocks out the drumbeat pounding of the city. The solidity of him, the _realness_ of him, is a comfort after the terrifyingly amorphous _give_ of the city. Will feels soft and shaky and fragile in the aftermath of nearly losing himself completely, and the thought of moving right now a little beyond his abilities.

“William?” asks Honeydew, quietly, and any relief Will may have felt drains away at the sickening disappointment in Honeydew’s voice.

He opens his mouth to object, to explain, but Kirin beats him to it. “Your nephew’s magic cried out to me because he was in distress, and drowning in the very city that should be protecting him. _Obeying_ him. He nearly died.”

Kirin’s voice is ice cold, somewhere between malicious and righteously angry, and Will’s never heard him sound like this before. It’s almost frightening, only not so because the fury in it is not directed at him. “You have an urban sorcerer under your tutelage, and not only have you failed to teach him adequate control but you have not even told him what he is.”

He pauses for a second, eyes blazing as he meets Xephos’ gaze. “You have failed in your duty of care, Xephos – you can hardly blame me for attempting to compensate for your negligence and keep the boy alive.”

Xephos’ face drains of colour, and Will’s not sure whether it’s from rage, horror, or shock. Quite honestly, he’s not sure he wants to know. Just seeing it makes him feel ill.

“Oh,” says Kirin, very quietly, malice and cruel, inhuman amusement laced through the barbed edge of his voice. “Didn’t you know?” He smiles, wide, too many teeth in the low, fading light of the sun through Will’s window. “Did you think he was just a mage, like you? Little more than a hedgewitch? Were you _honestly_ that naive?”

Irritation flits across Lomadia’s face at the hedgewitch comment, and she opens her mouth to argue – but Honeydew reaches behind Xephos to poke her in the ribs, and her mouth snaps shut again. Wisely, she stays silent, although her eyes still burn with resentment at her profession being so casually dismissed.

For a long minute, Xephos just stares at Kirin, blade dipping a little as if he’s no longer strong enough to hold it up. But then Honeydew touches his hip with one spare hand, still holding the frying pan aloft with the other, and Lomadia nudges an elbow into his side because she can’t spare any hands from her woven charm, and the moment is broken.

Something in Xephos seems to click back into place, and his spine straightens a little, fingers twitching around the foreign sword’s hilt. “How dare you,” he says, deadly calm. “I know your kind-"

“That you do,” agrees Kirin, quietly, eyes flickering to the sword in Xephos' hands for the slightest second. Something like a smile curls at the corner of his mouth, and it’s anything but friendly.

Xephos ignores him. “-and I know the tricks you play, the debts you gather, the seductions you weave. How dare you pretend this is about anything other than greed and manipulation. Get _out_ , and leave my family alone.” He raises his sword a little higher, locks eyes with Will. “Uninvite him,” he snaps.

“Ah, no,” says Kirin, smiling, moving his hand from Will’s hair to press the tip of one finger against his lips. “You are in my debt, William. I saved your life, remember?” He leans in a little closers and murmurs, “Oh, but you owe me for _so_ much more than that.”

The brush of his lips against Will’s ear is enough to make Will shiver, as are the implications of Kirin’s words. He’d known Kirin was different, other, non-human, but it had never occurred to him that Kirin might be something that dealt in debts and loans. That Kirin might be fae. That the fae even _existed_ in cities, away from the life and greenery and earth of the countryside. He thinks of the endless plants and soil in Kirin’s shop, all the food and tea and gifts he was offered, and feels a little sick at exactly how many warning signs he missed.

He opens his mouth anyway to revoke his invitation – if he can, if that even works on someone, some _thing,_ as powerful as Kirin – and then swallows abruptly when the words stick in his throat.

It’s not a charm, nor a curse, no feeling of any kind of spell cast by Kirin settling upon him. It’s older magic than that, the kind of magic bound up in oaths and blood. Somewhere in the back of his mind, tucked away from the part of it that’s currently gibbering fear and confusion, he realises with a sinking feeling exactly how tight a hold Kirin has on him.

The knowledge should make him afraid, but instead he feels oddly safe. Protected.

Smiling widely, Kirin lets him go, slips off the bed and gets to his feet in a gesture just a little too fluid for it to be human. He leaves Will still sat there, hunched over his own knees, touching his lips with trembling fingers. “Well,” he says, grinning wider at the anger in Xephos’ eyes. “As fun as this has been, I need to leave now. I have a shop to finish closing up. Farewell.”

He doesn’t quite vanish, but just… suddenly isn’t there any more, the memory of the point between when he was and when he wasn’t somehow hazy in Will’s head. There’s just a scorch mark on the floor and the lingering taste of honey-lemon magic in the air, and somehow Will doesn't think that should be as comforting as it is.

“William!” snaps Lomadia, the moment he’s gone, discarding the cat’s cradle of string wound between her fingers to the floor with a sharp gesture and advancing on him, one hand raised. He wouldn’t put it past her to slap him, between the anger in her tone and the fire in her eyes. “William Strife, how _dare_ you- How could you be so _stupid_ -”

Xephos catches her arm before she can get too close, though, stops her with a gentle touch. “Not now,” he says, quietly, cuts her off when she opens her mouth to disagree with a slight squeeze of his fingers. “You heard what Kirin said,” he adds, lowering his voice further. “He nearly died. Just… just for this evening, leave it be. Let me have a word with him. You can shout at him tomorrow.” His lips twist into a wry sort of grin. “I’ll help you, then, if you want.”

She huffs irritably, displeased – but her expression softens a little when she sees Will on the bed, eyes bloodshot with dark bags underneath and face shiny with cold sweat. He’s still trembling, ever so slightly. “This won’t end here,” she warns Xephos, quietly, leaning in so Will won’t overhear. “If Kirin’s got a hold on him, he won’t let go.”

“Leave Kirin to me,” says Xephos, grimly, fingers tightening briefly around the hilt of his sword again, before sighing. He hands it over to Lomadia like he’s a little scared of it, but his fingers nearly re-close around it at the last minute and she has to half-tug it out of his grip. “Go… put it somewhere safe,” he says tiredly. The unspoken _where I can't find it_ hangs heavy in the air between them. He drags a hand over his face once he’s no longer touching it, like a weight’s settled back over his shoulders. “I’ll have a quick word with Will.”

For a long second, Lomadia scrutinises his face – and then she nods. Kissing the corner of his mouth gently, she pats him on the shoulder, offers him a tight smile, and leaves the room with the sword held as far from her body as possible as if it were are poisonous snake about to bite.

Honeydew lets her leave, lips twisted in distaste at the sword and the purple-blue glow it traces in the air. “That thing’s bad news,” he says, prodding Xephos’ hip until the other man looks down at him to meet his eyes. “You told me you’d gotten rid of it.”

Sighing, Xephos darts another glance over at Will, still hunched over and looking like he’s trying not to fall apart. “I… it was too powerful to lose, friend,” he says, winces at the angry disapproval that darkens Honeydew’s eyes. “I’m in control of it. I’m fine.”

“Y’don’t look it,” mutters Honeydew, a little mutinously – despite the absence of the blade, there’s still an echo of purple light in Xephos’ usually blue eyes. It tinges the edge of his irises an almost red colour.

But Xephos looks at him, raises one eyebrow, and he huffs out a noise of defeat. “Okay, okay. I’ll leave you to it. I’m gonna go get the lad something to eat, he could use the warmth and meat on his bones.” He glances over at Will, a small, worried not-quite-smile twisting his lips. “Don’t be too hard on him, okay? He looks like he’s about to fall apart.”

With Will the unhealthy shade of grey that he is and still shivering, Xephos can hardly argue with that. “I’ll… try. Thank you,” he murmurs, and lets Honeydew tug him down for a chaste kiss before he leaves, frying pan still swinging from one hand as he hums softly to himself.

As soon as he’s gone, Will virtually collapses over his own knees, shoulders shaking harder than ever. “I’m sorry,” he says, words rasping-raw and exhausted and tinged with desperation. “I didn’t know he was one of the fae-”

Xephos cuts him off with a wave of one hand, and Will falls silent almost immediately.

Dragging a hand through his hair again, Xephos exhales slowly, and weighs his words on his tongue before he speaks them. “I… don't know what to say to you,” he says quietly. There's guilt there, a little, but also enough disappointment to make Will cringe.

“Kirin isn’t just one of the fae folk,” he continues, and there’s no sympathy in his voice – it’s flat, matter-of-fact, detached. That alone is enough to make Will blink, look up at the grim expression on his uncle’s face and feel his stomach twist in worry. “He’s the _king_ of them. Ruler of the sidhe court. He’s one of the most powerful beings in the city.”

After a moment's silence, where the words hang between them, Xephos sighs and lets his shoulders slump. “More benevolent than most, though,” he adds, quietly, and in that moment he looks older and more tired than Will's ever seen him. “You were lucky at least in that respect.”

Will groans, drops his head into his palms and scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I didn’t know,” he says again, softer than before, and he knows it’s not an excuse. He may have been new, naive, intoxicated on the city – but he should have known better. He should have had his eyes open. City fae are so different to the ones he grew up with in the country, but he should have known by the strangeness of Kirin's magic and the games he played and his gifts. “I didn’t know.”

Humming in something that’s neither agreement nor disagreement, Xephos nods. There’s something heavy in his eyes, like the weight of the world’s on his shoulders. “I just thought you might like to know who, exactly, you’ve sold yourself to.”

He disappears through the doorway before Will can reply, before he can protest yet again that he didn’t know.

Instead, he presses his shaking hands harder into his eye sockets until he sees stars behind his eyelids. He tries not to focus on the smell of food now drifting up from downstairs through the open door – honey-roast chicken and fresh baked bread and warming toffee pecan pie – and how the undertaste of sweetness to it reminds him of how Kirin’s magic tasted on the back of his tongue.


End file.
